By Christopher Bean, Research Associate, U K Defence Forum

Previous attempts to mitigate financial risk

Defence PFI/PPP and prime contractorships were introduced into the UK almost concurrently between 1990 and 1992 respectively. Why were they being introduced? The answer is not as simple as just finance and the ability to provide long term structures (which incidentally introduced new risks), but primarily to try and remove the risk that had been borne by government and its departments of state which had proved themselves inadequate to the task of procuring complex technical

In the wake of controversy over private military contracting, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 established the Commission on Wartime Contracting to investigate the issue. The commission is expected to issue an interim report in 2009 and a final report in 2010. The commission should pro mote recommendations to improve the government's capacity to make and oversee contracts in an "expedi tionary" wartime environment, advocate a more robust and capable contracting force, and propose better doctrine and management processes for decid ing when hiring contractors to support military oper ations is most useful.